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Prevention is imperative for sex offenders

By PAULA BARR
Daily Journal Staff Writer

Early identification of risk factors, intervention and treatment are important keys to helping sex offenders avoid future offenses, said Dr. Jeannie Thies, former psychologist with the Department of Corrections (DOC).

Nearly all sex offenders will eventually be released, prevention is imperative.

A 1988 study of the Missouri Sex Offender Program (MOSOP) tracked for five years men who had completed Missouri’s sex offender program. It compared their success with those who had not completed MOSOP, said Thies, a professor at Lindenwood University in St. Charles. Her expertise includes sex offender treatment and management, offender risk assessment and criminal thinking errors.

“Those who failed to complete the program or refused to participate in it were three times more likely to commit more sex offenses,” she said.

More recent statistics, based on five-year studies of offenders from 1994 to 2002, indicate that those who fail to complete MOSOP are about twice as likely to re-offend as those who complete the sex offender program.

Sex registry and notification programs, on the other hand, are limited in effectiveness and can give citizens a false sense of security, added Thies, who has researched notification and registration laws around the country.

“There is a lack of empirical evidence to tell us if they are really working,” Thies said. “Nobody is incorrect in saying, “I looked on the sex registry and there is one in my neighborhood so I’m going to be careful,’ but notification laws don’t prevent sex offenders from living out among us.”

Sex offender lists include a wide range of sex crimes and do not take into account whether the person has been through — or is continuing — treatment. The registration policy does not include notification of neighbors when a sex offender moves into a neighborhood.

And, just because a person is not on a sex offender list, it does not mean he or she does not sexually abuse children.

“They’re not all caught,” Thies said. “You have to be vigilant and realize the system can’t do it all.”

Change the thinking

Thies worked in the Missouri Department of Corrections in its Missouri Sex Offender Program (MOSOP) from 1985-1994. The program started in 1980. Completing MOSOP successfully is the only way sex offenders can earn early parole. Those who refuse to attend or fail to complete the program must serve their entire sentence.

During Thies’ entire tenure at the DOC, fewer than 50 women were convicted sex offenders.

Research indicates that some men and women are born with a sexual proclivity for young children, Thies said. Others commit sexual crimes against children and young teenagers for other reasons, including poor judgment and poor impulse control.

Regardless of the reason for the criminal actions, many therapists believe sex offenders can change their behavior, even when they are dealing with sexual proclivities, Thies said.

“We’re not changing sexual deviance, we’re changing lifestyle,” Thies said. “If you change the way sex offenders think, you can help them control their behavior.”

Programs across the country vary in conditions, funding and effectiveness. Most effective are ones that provide treatment along with supervised containment — such as incarceration or residential programs. Close supervision enables therapists to see early warning signs of problems.

Thies said it also is important to educate the families of offenders so they can take an active role in the treatment and understand the process. There is one key to effective treatment, however.

“Although it’s tough for people other than the offender to know for sure, studies indicate treatment can be successful,” Thies explained. “This is all contingent on the person wanting to change.”

Early intervention

People who think treatment is coddling criminals are short-sighted, Thies said. Treatment for sex offenders is essential, because most convicted sex offenders are released into society when they have served their prison time.

“They’re in our community and there is a higher chance of success if we help them early on,” she said. “Prison incapacitates, it doesn’t change behavior. The non-intercepted offender goes on offending.”

Society needs to support intervention programs that have been successful, not to “let people off the hook,” but to prevent future offenses, Thies pointed out. She believes better screening methods and tools are needed to determine which offenders have a better chance of being successful.”

Juvenile courts can work effectively with young sex offenders by including a focus on intervention, Thies said.

“They (effective courts) are very vigilant and they act quickly with a vigorous course of treatment,” she said. “They intervene aggressively and appropriately, not punitively.”

Adults in the correctional system are not able to take the intensive MOSOP program until they near a possible parole date. When the program first began, the enticement of earlier parole drew some people who otherwise might not have enrolled, Thies said. The result was surprising.

“These people became committed and engaged in the process,” she related. “People we initially had judged not suitable did better in the program.”

Facing own actions

The MOSOP program requires offenders to admit guilt. Anyone who was wrongly convicted can benefit from the program by seeing how their behaviors indicated problems that led to their conviction. Regardless of guilt or innocence, once society has judged someone as guilty, that person has to live his or her life as a sex offender.

Typically, a series of events leads to an offender ending up in prison. Treatment helps an offender look at their decisions, lifestyles and associations. Some offenders so heavily rationalize their behavior, they nearly convince themselves the offense did not happen, Thies said.

Treatment tears down that rationalization. Participant offenders chip away each others’ defenses as well as their own.

One goal for each participant is to learn the “triggers” that lead to his or her deviant behavior. That can be risky, because to do that, they must take a close look at the facts of their case. Sometimes, that close look reveals past abuses that went unreported.

“There were no secrets about what they were accused of,” Thies said. “Anything said that identified other victims, we would have been obligated to report.”

Victims

The number of reports of sex abuse rose in the 1980s, largely due to greater awareness and educational programs in schools that taught concepts such as “good touch, bad touch.” With the heightened awareness, secrets began to emerge.

“We all live in a large society, so it’s less likely that people could grow up without the awareness that child sex abuse is wrong,” Thies said.

The effects of sexual abuse on child victims also have become better publicized. Those effects can last a lifetime.

While many victims feel they are powerless and suffer emotional damage as a result of the abuse, reactions are individualistic, Thies said.

“Some people cope better than others,” she explained. “A single support person can make a difference.”

Victims might never want to see the offender again. Others — especially in cases where the offender and victim are family members — might wish to confront the offender. Fewer than a dozen of victim-offender meetings took place while Thies was at the department, although they were not part of the MOSOP curriculum.

Meetings between victims and offenders occurred only when both parties were willing to meet with the other, and only when the victim, not the offender, asked for the meeting.

Victim-offender dialogues, a practice used in restorative justice programs, provide an opportunity for victims to confront the offender with the harm he/she has caused. It also provides a chance for the offender to apologize and/or answer the victim’s questions. Such meetings are done with the help of a mediator and take place only after extensive preparation with both parties.

Last year, the DOC conducted its second restorative justice victim-offender dialogue — its first in a prison. Several other victims have asked to participate in a dialogue, said Jeananne Markway, the DOC’s restorative justice coordinator.

When Thies was at the DOC, restorative justice and its terminology had not yet become part of the prison system.

“Sometimes, we would get a call from a therapist whose patient wanted to confront the offender,” Thies said. “If the offender agreed to the meeting, we would provide (him or her) guidance on what not to say so they did not re-victimize the victim.”

Offenders had to have completed MOSOP or be in the final stages in order to participate in the meetings. Therapists also would have approval over participation — if someone was not in the right frame of mind, he or she would not be allowed to meet with their victim(s).

The requests usually came from victims who were related to the offender.

“Sometimes, they were going to have to face the offender at the table when he was released,” Thies said. “They wanted to ease into that transition.”

Paula Barr is a reporter for the Daily Journal and can be reached at 573-431-2010, ext. 172 or at pbarr@dailyjournalonline.com.

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